German finance minister says no more risks of contagion in euro zone

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said early this week that there were no longer any risks of contagion in the euro zone, and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stressed his country did not need a further bailout.
Schaeuble said Greece's achievements in the last 1-1/2 years, which included better-than-expected growth and progress in reducing its deficit, merited respect. He also pointed to the decline in the difference between yields on German and Greek bonds.
He said government crises and coalition negotiations no longer posed contagion risks for the single currency bloc as a whole, without specifying which country or countries he was referring to.
"The euro is stable, financial markets are no longer concerned about the future of the euro zone and there are no risks of contagion anymore," he said at a conference organized by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Berlin.
Speaking later at the event, Greece's Samaras reiterated that his country did not need a further bailout and instead simply needed to fulfill the terms of its existing program.
Athens has said it will emerge from a six-year recession next year and has more than doubled its forecast for the budget surplus before interest payments for this year.
International lenders are in the middle of their latest review of Greece's performance on its reform targets. Posting a budget surplus before interest payments would open the way for Greece to ask for debt relief.
"I think that this is enough. We don't need something else - we don't need another program - we just have to stick by this program," Samaras said.
After more than two months of reviewing Greece's economy, the lenders have still not agreed to release Greece's next tranche of bailout funds. Officials from the "troika" of lenders - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - are due to return to the country in early December.
"I believe that what we need at this point is to finish the job by the end of the year of getting, that is, the approval of the troika for the next tranche," Samaras said.
The prime minister stressed that Greece did not need more time to reduce its debt. "At this point I'm going very fast ... I do not need time to wait," he said.
Athens faces bond payments of 1.85 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in early January.